A federal magistrate judge has ordered NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to provide the court with documents related to the league's bounty investigation of the New Orleans Saints.

The order by Magistrate Daniel Knowles comes in response to suspended linebacker Jonathan Vilma's efforts to initiate the discovery process in his defamation case against the commissioner. Vilma says the NFL has allowed him to review only a fraction of documents related to bounty matter.

Knowles has issued a compromise order in which only the court, and not Vilma, may see the documents - "including reports of interviews with witnesses" - before a subsequent order is made on whether to allow discovery to proceed.

Vilma also re-filed a related lawsuit on Monday asking for his season-long suspension to be overturned.